Kiran Bedi - Global Transformation Forum 2015

Kiran Bedi shared the key lessons and strategies she learnt from decades in public service. Empathy yields tremendous leadership influence. Leaders constantly deal with challenges in empowering people under their direction as well as stakeholders.

This session looked at the role of empowerment through an emphatic process.  Bedi pointed out that there were only 24 female CEOs in Fortune 500 companies in the US. US paper The Washington Post reported last June that the figure meant women only comprised 5 per cent of heads of America’s most influential companies.

video credit: Big Fast Results Institute

Kiran Bedi is a social activist, a retired Indian Police Service officer and now a politician. The first Indian woman to join officer’s ranks of IPS in 1972, Bedi took voluntary retirement from the services in 2007, but not before she had served the position of the Director General at the Bureau of Police Research and Development.

Bedi has been one of the active members of the Anna Hazare-led civil society that launched a movement for the enactment of a strong anti-corruption law, Jan Lokpal. She formally joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in January 2015 to play an important role in the February 2015 polls to the Delhi Assembly.

Kiran Bedi did not start her career as a cop, but as a lecturer of Political Science at the Khalsa College for Women in Amritsar in 1970. After two years of teaching, she cleared the Civil Services examination and became an IPS officer. This made her the first woman in India to join the services.

During her career, she served as the chief of New Delhi Traffic Police, DIG of Police in Mizoram, Advisor to the Lt. Governor of Chandigarh, Director General of Narcotics Control Bureau, and Civilian Police Advisor for United Nations Peacekeeping operations. She was honoured with the United Nations Medal for her work.

Bedi introduced a number of reforms in the management of Tihar Jail, Delhi when she was the Inspector General of Prisons during 1993-1995. The various programmes introduced by her under this mission witnessed positive changes in the lives of prisoners.

Her short stint is remembered as a golden period in the history of the prison and won her the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1994 and the Jawahar Lal Nehru Fellowship. The last position Bedi held was that of the Director General of India's Bureau of Police Research & Development. She was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Law in acknowledgment of her “humanitarian approach to prison reforms and policing” in May 2005.

Two years later Kiran decided to voluntarily retire from the police services, and the Government of India granted her permission to do so. On December 25, 2007, she retired to dedicate herself to social issues.